


Animal Itch

by Luneykitty



Series: Teaching A Street Rat New Tricks [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Eventual OT6, Fighting, M/M, Michael From the Streets AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 15:11:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luneykitty/pseuds/Luneykitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael can’t help his one last addiction…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animal Itch

**Author's Note:**

> Street!Michael AU started by Yetiokay, populated by many. My submissions to this AU will be linked together as a collection of one-shots but with the same backstory, however if I should write significantly more in this world I'll try and make it so you don't have to read all of them to understand any given one. 
> 
> Warning: Fighting, swearing, gay slanders, brief one-liners about child abandonment/sexual assault
> 
> Oh my god you guys I am experiencing the most epic happy-full-belly EVER. My mom made a favorite dish of mine that I haven't gotten to eat since before I left for bootcamp. Dear god the glory of this moment. If you haven't moved out of your parents/guardians place yet, make sure you know how to cook your favorite foods because the moment you crave it and you're too far away from that lifeline nothing will satisfy you. NOTHING. 
> 
> With that being said, please enjoy this newest installment.

Michael didn't want to admit it to any of his boys, especially not after all the help they've given to him over the months he's been with them which is fucking crazy in its own right, but he still had one addiction that he just could not kick the habit of. 

He'd tried abstaining because jesus fuck did he want to make the guys proud of him. He could still remember the disappointment on their faces when he was forced to admit to bringing some shit in with him and that when he'd run out he'd gone and found the pitiful amount of underbelly Austin had to offer to continue his fix. Geoff had looked like someone told him his dog had been run over and Ray had gone so quiet the unspoken words felt like weights on the end of a choke-chain, cutting off his breathing. 

Michael did not want to relive that experience ever again thanks.

Still though, there is one habit he can't seem to shake and he's getting antsy the longer he goes without slacking the thirst. He's snappy and bitchy and he knows it and he also knows the guys think it's withdrawal and it is but it's not to anything they think he's on or used to be on. 

Getting over the drugs had actually been easier than getting over this other need of his. The physical pain of his body going through the motions of detoxing from the different chemicals had been bad, but so had the broken bones he'd set himself and the multitude of cuts and stabs that hadn't gotten stitches. The sweaty, delirious nausea that came with the pain wasn't worse than food poisoning from rotten meat or riding out the fevers of infection behind dumpsters. 

All of that he had suffered through for them; for Ray to not watch him so carefully, for Geoff to not monitor his every reaction to the others. For Gavin to make jokes about that sort of thing and not cringe and look at him, for Ryan to not keep drug info tabs open on his cell 24/7, for Jack to not always be so damn understanding when Michael flipped out for no good reason. 

This last of his addictions was relentless for the simple fact he didn't have any symptoms of it. His muscles didn't cramp and he didn't break out into a fever for it. Instead it was a subtle antsy-ness, a need to move in this insistent thrumming beneath his skin that felt so close to stir-crazy it drove him nuts in a different kind of way. 

Every few weeks he'd leave the house Geoff let him live at with him and Gavin, the house technically owned by the two even though the others dropped by and spent the night so often he didn't know why they didn't all just move in. Michael would walk around the block futilely, getting flushed and jittery, hands opening and closing where he let them hang by his side. 

Eventually he'd either head back to the house and punch the tree Geoff had in his backyard until his knuckles bled or he'd find some sorry asshole and finally, finally get the itch out from under his skin with a nice right hook to the guy's fucking face. 

Michael didn't know why he loved it but he did and it just felt so good he went crazy if he couldn't get it. He'd try to resist it but fighting the urge to fight was harder than giving up drugs or handing over all of his guns to Geoff and most of his knives, too. 

It only lasted as long as it did because of how infrequent it was. If he'd been sporting bloody knuckles every other week the guys would have gotten the goods out of him through sheer stubbornness. Between the five of them they could implement so many variations of interrogation tactics, from whining annoyingly to playing fucking mind games until his confession was wrung out of him as easily as getting water from a dish rag. 

He may have gotten away with it indefinitely even, if not for shitty timing and the fact that the guys were prone to doing domestic things like coming home early to spend time with him or dropping by the house on lunch breaks. Normally they called him to tell him ahead of time so he wouldn't freak out when the door suddenly opened or if he woke up to voices in the house. 

The day he got caught was the day they'd decided he was settled in enough to not need the safety net and it was also the day he'd gone out and gotten into one of the best fights yet. His lip was split and getting puffy but he'd already wiped off the blood so he paid it no mind. His whole body was sore from the exertion leaking through his adrenaline and he would probably develop a black-eye within a few days but it was worth taking the hits to utterly fuck up the other guy. 

The guy had been big and mean and worst of all a queer-hater. Michael had never had anything against gays before but ever since the guys had been caught/let slip about their strange little group of love he'd been even more against the kinds of people that called his new crew wrong. Having the kind of love these guys did for each other and still having enough left over to shelter and nurture Michael's dumb ass, that wasn't wrong. The prostitution, the pimping, the for-drug sex in shitty apartments, the babies thrown in dumpsters that he'd brought to the shelters, the kids left behind in parks that he'd given up his days pickings for, that was fucking wrong. 

All of his glory and pride had melted away the moment he'd turned onto his street and seen the big van used to shuttle the whole of his boys when they did group gatherings and intended to stay together for a couple hours at least. 

“Fuck.” Michael's spat the curse around the throb of his cut, a new wave of adrenaline spiking through him so that he was suddenly flooded with nerves and jitters. Everything in his body told him to run, that not facing the music was the best option he had and he'd better start booking it now. 

Gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into fists, Michael forced himself forward and towards the house. His days of running from people trying to help him were over. These guys weren't cops or social workers they were his boys. His crew. 

One of his hands unclenched and wrapped around his front to press into his side, palming the area where his most prized tattoo was hidden. He still hadn't let any of the others see him shirtless, too embarrassed by the idea of them seeing it. He played it off as not wanting them to see his scars and they left him alone about it which meant that he still had this secret to himself, this totem to help him get through the days and to remind him that this was his new home, that he'd chosen it and paid for it with his body and blood and would do it again if he ever had to. 

With that reminder soothing him a little and one last squeeze of his ribs Michael was at the door, lifting up his hand from his side to test the knob. 

He was expecting them to be mad at him but he wasn't expecting the door to be ripped out of his grip two inches into opening it, the force making him stumble forward and into the arms of the man that had done the deed. It happened so fast Michael wouldn't have registered who it was if it weren't for all the tattoos marking up the arms that enveloped him. 

“Jesus dicks dude, don't you dare leave like that again!” Geoff's voice was rough and it cracked a little and he might have been squeezing Michael more than the curly haired lad was comfortable with but it didn't matter because Geoff was concerned about him rather than angry which was weird as fuck but Michael would take it. 

“Yeah man, we know you're grown up enough to walk down the street without us, but at least leave a note or take your cell phone with you!” Ray's voice came over Geoff's shoulder and when the older man finally let him go enough to come fully into the house and shut the door it was Ray who caught sight of his lip first. This prompted a very quick and thorough check over, Michael's shoulders tensing guiltily everytime brown eyes snagged on a cut or bruise, each injury aching accusingly as if the puerto rican had poked it directly. 

“What happened to you?!” Ray sounded more incredulous than anything and Michael felt like a piece of shit because they were concerned for him and he was off picking fights with homophobes just to scratch an animal itch. He didn't deserve them. 

“I just...went for a walk...” Michael shrugged and looked away, looking down when he noticed Gavin, Ryan and Jack all watching him from the sidelines with sympathetic looks. He cringed and almost scuffed his foot against the floor like a little boy being forced to apologize for something. “Might have run into some asshole.”

“You got into a fight? With who?” Geoff's voice is cutting, his guardian instincts making it apparent what he'd like to do to the guy that touched his Michael. It made the hair on the back of the younger man's neck stand up; he knew the repercussions of touching someone else's property like this and even if Geoff really wasn't a gang leader that tone of voice was full of a promise Michael had heard before and helped deliver. 

“Just some asshole, I don't know his name alright?” Michael grunted it out and looked up with a glint in his eye, voice hard as he added, “He was talking shit about gay people. I told him to cut it out, he called me a fag, I said even a fag like me could kick his ass.”

Here his eyes light up, his posture changing with anticipation and lips slightly parting. He doesn't notice it in himself and he doesn't notice it in the others when they see it in him. 

“So we went outside and I sent him to the hospital, then I came back here.” He finished it up with a slight tilt to his chin, as if daring them to tell him he was wrong. 

“Why would you do that?” Ray asked quietly and even Michael knew he wasn't meaning the fight itself. He let out a breath and shook his shoulders, readying himself to try and explain why he was a fucked up, bloodthirsty mutt, a street rat born and bred and meant to be. 

“You're not a homo.” It's Gavin's voice that interrupts what hasn't begun, soft with confusion and complete with a slight head tilt. The question is enough to make Michael laugh, short and quick and more like a release of tension than from any humor.

“No, I'm not. Not normally.” Michael does his best to not let the shadows of his past peek out through his eyes. Little boys can't really defend themselves from adults with cravings, male or female. He's had his share of both, along with some crazy nights fueled by drugs and alcohol and not enough women around. He's not even sure he's not attracted to men really. He hasn't ever done it willingly and sober so he can't really say no to it. He has some soul searching to do about himself but that's not what Gavin is asking so it's not the answer he gives. “I said it to get him to fight me. I...I went looking for a guy like him.”

“You like it.” Ryan has stepped up, leaving Jack to gently sooth a hand down Gavin's back as the Brit looked crestfallen. The blue eyed man is clearly thinking fast, putting the facts together so quickly it was like magnetized puzzle pieces; the picture revealed itself to him like he wasn't even unraveling a situation with the strings of one sentence. Too damn smart for Michael to even comprehend. 

“You like fighting. Like how some people like horror movies or roller coasters.” Ryan continues and Michael doesn't think his addiction is as tame as movies and theme parks but the older man keeps going regardless of his opinion. “It's the rush, the adrenaline. You're an adrenaline junkie.”

“More like sky divers and bull riders.” Geoff cut in with a snort, eyes appraising the cut lip of the curly haired young man with disapproval. “You like putting yourself in danger. You're addicted to it.”

The word makes Michael flinch, the others in the room tensing. It had been almost taboo to mention it after what the freckled lad had been through and just the word said out loud added a layer of tension to the room. 

“I have a solution.” Ryan states confidently into the silence, eyes on Geoff. He's close enough now to fit between Ray and Geoff, laying a firm hand on Michael's shoulder. He squeezed gently as he spoke. “He's not the only person on earth to like getting into a good bar fight. I know a guy who runs mixed martial arts and a little bit of boxing.”

Michael's face lifts at that, brown meeting blue as Ryan looks to him and smiles. Ray's hand takes one of Michael's and laces their fingers, the smaller man smiling ruefully when Michael's gaze shifts over. 

“I don't know why you would actually want to get yourself beat up, but at least you had good taste in the asses you kicked.” Ray's glasses hike up as he grins, fingers squeezing and warm. “Plus I think it'd be pretty cool to see what you can do in a ring and all like, professional.”

“It's be bloody top!” Gavin exclaims as he bounds over, earlier hurt forgotten and dragging Jack with him. The bearded man smiles and shakes his head at their British lad fondly. 

“At least then we wouldn't have to wonder why you keep coming home with bruises.” 

The four lover's look to Geoff then, each of them having thrown in their support of the venture and of their curly haired friend. The tattooed man stared each of them down before he sighed in mock irritation, a smirk coming to his lips as a hand passed through his hair. 

“You're all a bunch of stupid dicks.” He placed a hand in Michael's curls and ruffled them, heart stuttering at the smile that broke out on the younger guys face from his obvious support. He smiled softer. “We're all here for you, Michael. Don't you fucking forget it.”

Michael smiled even more, the sudden feeling of belonging, of being supported no matter what, making his aches fade into the distance and the spot on his ribs burn pleasantly. He tucked his arm in close, rubbing his tattoo with an elbow and feeling like the little logo really was a totem of strength. 

Of family.

“I won't forget.”

**Author's Note:**

> Decided after much moop and rolling around that I would indeed make my flavor of street!Michael an OT6 relationship, eventually. Michael's not going to immediately jump into a relationship of that magnitude and complexity when he barely trusts people to not stab him in the street, but if I keep writing these (which I plan on doing) he'll eventually warm up to it. 
> 
> Chronologically this happens after Old Wounds but before Moral Compass. Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
